Episode 33: How to Stop People Pleasing

In this episode,

Lizzie tackles the concept of being a 'people pleaser,' examining where these tendencies come from, how to recognize them, and how to build better habits.

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Post-pod questions to consider

Are there ways in your life that you are a people pleaser? What can you do to set a boundary to avoid people pleasing?

Episode Transcript

Hey, you're listening to Midnight Philosopher with Lizzie. Thanks for tuning in. 

Today I'm going to talk about being a people pleaser. People pleasing is often a trauma response from your early childhood because you couldn't be loud or angry or feel your feelings. You learned that you had to be a caretaker for the adults in your life. You learned that by making the adults in your life happy, you felt safe or loved or whatever it may have been. You learned that pleasing others got your needs met, and so fast forward into adulthood. Your blueprint is that love equals pleasing others, so of course you naturally try to please others because who doesn't wanna feel loved? 

Here's the catch to remember. People pleasing, as I said, is a trauma response, which means it's not necessarily a beneficial coping skill for adulthood. It often leaves people feeling used, sad or lonely. Others will sometimes take advantage of someone else's, people pleasing tendencies, and the people doing. The people pleasers often don't feel like they have their needs met, which likely might have happened in childhood when they pleased others. But often when you please others in adulthood in that way, your needs are not going to be met. 

I've been a chronic people pleaser my whole life. I love my parents very much, but being the parents of four children, including a set of triplets, must have been very difficult for them. I had to make myself small and go with the flow to keep safety and calm in my house. This was especially true due to one of my brothers who had uncontrolled of both tantrums. There couldn't be two kids in my family who did that, and I intuitively knew this at a, at a very young age, and I knew that I had to suppress my urges and needs even though I didn't necessarily want to. 

So as I became an adult, I was definitely a people pleaser because I had learned to suppress my own needs and meet the needs of others in order to feel loved and cared for. One time in my early twenties, I had a crush on a coworker and acted on it, which was a mistake for many reasons, but my people pleasing tendencies kicked into overdrive. I always found myself walking the twenty minutes to her apartment, which I even did in a snow storm one time, and she didn't make any effort to come to my apartment. 

It also felt like she liked having me around and liked that I had a crush in her. But it became clear to me over time that she didn't really have feelings for me, but my people pleasing tendencies blinded me. I thought if I just made her happy enough, she'd finally love me. Somewhere along that year I realized that mutuality was really important to me, and I realized that my relationship, her with her didn't feel very mutual. And so when I 
stopped making such an effort to walk to her house and asked her to come to mind, she made no effort in response. My people pleasing tendencies had been keeping me stuck in an unfulfilling and not very reciprocal relationship, and so I decided to end things with her another time. 

My people pleasing tendencies got in the way in friendships during the pandemic. I felt really lonely and isolated since I lived with no other people and I was struggling a bit mentally with my mental health. So I did a program, and one of the other patients and I became friendly, and after the program ended, we started hanging out on their deck. Except every time I came over, I felt really emotionally drained. They talked endlessly about their emotional strife. I didn't feel like the conversation was very mutual or that I really shared anything at all. I felt kind of like they were trying to use me as their therapist, except you can't be a therapist to a friend because you have too much invested in the relationship and too many opinions about them. 

And so I started to feel invisible in this friendship and started to resent them, but I also felt so lonely and they were one of the people willing to hang out with me. During the pandemic, I did some reflecting with my own therapist and realized that preserving my energy was more important to me than seeing another person. So when I stopped being so available to listen to their grievances, they eventually ghosted me and stopped returning my texts. They didn't like that. I didn't wanna hear all their problems. 

Sometimes people pleasing involves setting boundaries and sometimes people who are using You don't like that. That's not your fault though. And your peace of mind is saving your energy is important. This friend wasn't a bad person, but I also couldn't be used by them in that way, and it was okay for me to set that boundary. What I basically did was when we started talking about one of their problems, I would say, oh, thanks for sharing. I don't wanna talk about that right now. And change the topic to the, to them, this might've felt jarring and uncaring, but to me, this was the way I preserved my energy. And by preserving my energy, I'm able to show up better in my relationships. 

A third time I was a people pleaser was with myself. I'm very self-indulgent sometimes to the point where I used to impulsively overspend. I never said no to myself. If I wanted something, I bought it. I argued this was a way to show myself love. I argued no one else was buying things for me. I might as well buy things for myself to show myself I loved me. This coping mechanism wasn't a healthy one for me. It took me maxing out my credit card and eating cereal with water for all my meals for a week to come to the conclusion that I shouldn't buy myself everything I want. 

First of all, I don't need all of it. And I also decided it's okay to treat myself, but the real self-love is saving my money for things that sustain me, like rent and food, not people pleasing myself, but having boundaries is a form of self-love that has been more helpful to me over the years I street. I still treat myself to things, arguably still a bit too much, but I limit myself now to make sure that I prioritize what will actually make me healthy and happy. 

So people pleasing is a trauma response. What can you do if you find yourself people pleasing with others or even with yourself? First, start with assessing the situation. When you're in the situation, tune in with your body. Does it feel relaxed and safe? Or do you feel tense and on edge? Usually, if something feels off in your body when you're in the presence of someone else, that might be your body's cue of saying something is off with the relationship. 

Next, ask you, ask yourself some questions. Does this relationship feel mutual? Does it feel reciprocal? Do I feel valued, heard or appreciated? And in the case of yourself ask, is this helping me feel safe and secure in the world? Is this benefiting my well-being? 

If the answer is no to any of those questions, then it might be time to set some boundaries with others and with yourself. You can do this by asking yourself what you need. Often the answer is that you need to show yourself some love, which is maybe a cliche, but often true. You need to value your self-worth and you need to stand up for your own self-respect. When you set boundaries that show yourself, love it, and it helps that those tendencies to seek love from others because those tendencies to people please shift from needing love from others to when you have some self-respect set in place with boundaries. You just want the love of others. And the difference between need and want is a really important one. And if you show yourself love, then you don't need the love from others. But it's nice to have and you want. Showing your self respect is a way to counteract the trauma response of people pleasing. 

In this episode, I talked about people pleasing. I gave examples from my own life in romantic relationships, friendships, and with myself when I have had people pleasing tendencies and how that negatively impact my life. I tried to talk about how you can identify if you have people pleasing tendencies and how setting boundaries and can be really helpful. And emphasizing your self-respect can be a way to let go of those people pleasing tendencies. 

Well, please follow me on Instagram @TheMidnightPhilosopher. I'm going to go tell my friends so that I can't stay out too late tonight. I'm setting a boundary for myself so I get good sleep. Have a good night.